|
|
Bach's Pupils
Discussions - Part 3 |
|
Continue from Part 2 |
|
OT: Leipzig Thomasschule ... summer vacation? |
|
Bruce Simonson wrote (April 21, 2011):
Pondering the life of the students at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, I find myself wondering if there is any information out there about how their academic "school year" was laid out.
For example, did they have summers off (or something like July and August)?
Or was it a year-long thing, without any breaks from continuous study?
No breaks?!
No summers off?!!
Keinen Weinachtszeiten (usw) frei??!!!
Anyone know? |
|
William L. Hoffman wrote (April 21, 2011):
[To Bruce Simonson] As has been mentioned several times, the Thomas School academic year began on the First Sunday After Trinity, when Bach was officially installed as Thomas cantor in 1723. After two years, Bach got his first vacation and left his perfect in charge. |
|
Ed Myskowski wrote (April 21, 2011):
[To William L. Hoffman] Thanks for the reminder. I do not recall noticing this detail before. It does indeed explain a lot, relevant to recent discussion of the church calendar, and to the timing of Bach’s Leipzig debut (BWV 75, for those who enjoy our weekly listening and discussion format). |
| |
|
Bach's Pupils |
|
Aryeh Oron wrote (July 3, 2014):
J.S. Bach is most probably the most influential composer in the Western world music and beyond. His influence upon composers and composition began with the musicians who surrounded him. He selected and instructed musicians for orchestras and choirs in Weimar and Leipzig. His work as Thomaskantor included teaching instrumental and vocal lessons to the church musicians and later to the musicians of the court orchestra. J.S. Bach was also a teacher of his own children, four of whom would become important composers (Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian), and of his second wife, Anna Magdalena.
J.S. Bach was an influential teacher and certainly a very good one, since under his wings excellent composers in their own right have emerged. Of the Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen periods should be mentioned Johann Martin Schubart, Bach's successor in Weimar, was also one of his first pupils, as was Johann Kaspar Vogler. Also Johann Tobias Krebs, Johann Gottfried Ziegler, Johann Schneider, and Bernhard Bach, the son of J.S. Bach's eldest brother. It may be partly accidental that we do not know of a greater number of Bach's pupils from these periods. An interesting case is Bernhard Christian Kayser who followed his teacher from Köthen to Leipzig.
Still, it is certain that it was not until he was in Leipzig that J.S. Bach was busiest as a teacher. He trained there not only pupils at the Thomaschule (Thomaners), but also young men who have come to Leipzig to study with him (private instruction, gaining experience mainly in playing various instruments, but a few also have good adult voices). Among his Leipzig pupils must be mentioned Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber, Johann Ludwig Krebs, son of the above-mentioned musician, Johann Friedrich Agricola, Gottfried August Homilius, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Christoph Transchel, Johann Theophilus Goldberg, Johann Christoph Altnikol and Johann Christian Kittel. One of his pupils, Johann Friedrich Doles, became later Thomaskantor himself and a leading composer of Protestant church music.
With great assistance from Thomas Braatz I have compiled a list of all known pupils of J.S. Bach from all periods of his activity as a teacher, including Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen, and of course, Leipzig. The list contains the names of pupils and students with whom J.S. Bach had musical contact during his Leipzig tenure with special emphasis upon the Thomaner and University of Leipzig students, but with the inclusion as well of some private music students who do not fall into either category.
The list of Bach's pupils presented is presented on the BCW at: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-List.htm
The list is divided into two parts: musicians (85) and non-musicians (61).
For all Bach's pupils who became professional musicians I have created bio pages, linked from their names in the list.
Although 146 seems quite impressive, I believe that the actual number of pupils at the Thomasschule during J.S. Bach's 27-year tenure years as Thomaskantor (1723-1750) is even bigger. And indeed, I have just discovered that in 2012 and 2013, staff at the Leipzig Bach Archive, headed by Dr. Peter Wollny, carried out systematic research into the lives and careers of the 325 Thomaner who had attended the boarding part of the choir school during Bach’s period. One in every four Bach Thomaner worked in later life as a church musician or schoolteacher. Thanks to this detailed research work in East German archives, numerous documents have been found which throw light on the life and teaching principles of the choir school. I hope to get the info from them and complete the list. |
|
Arthur Robinson wrote (July 6, 2014):
[To Aryeh Oron] Also Rudolf Straube(?). Studied at Leipzig Uni. Later in London (publ. there too). |
|
Aryeh Oron wrote (July 6, 2014):
[To Arthur Robinson] Rudolf Straube is already listed at: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-List.htm
He has a bio page on the BCW: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Straube-Rudolf.htm |
| |
|
BCW: Bach's Pupils |
|
Aryeh Oron wrote (June 2, 2020):
J.S. Bach is most probably the most influential composer in the Western world music and beyond. His influence upon composers and composition began with the musicians who surrounded him. He selected and instructed musicians for orchestras and choirs in Weimar and Leipzig. His work as Thomaskantor included teaching instrumental and vocal lessons to the church musicians and later to the musicians of the court orchestra. J.S. Bach was also a teacher of his own children, four of whom would become important composers (Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian), and of his second wife, Anna Magdalena.
J.S. Bach was an influential teacher and certainly a very good one, since under his wings excellent composers in their own right have emerged. Of the Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen periods should be mentioned Johann Martin Schubart, J.S. Bach's successor in Weimar, was also one of his first pupils, as was Johann Kaspar Vogler. Also Johann Tobias Krebs, Johann Gotthilf Ziegler, Johann Schneider, and Johann Bernhard Bach, the son of J.S. Bach's eldest brother. It may be partly accidental that we do not know of a greater number of J.S. Bach's pupils from these periods. An interesting case is Bernhard Christian Kayser who followed his teacher from Köthen to Leipzig.
Still, it is certain that it was not until he was in Leipzig that J.S. Bach was busiest as a teacher. He trained there not only pupils at the Thomaschule (Thomaners), but also young men who have come to Leipzig to study with him (private instruction, gaining experience mainly in playing various instruments, but a few also have good adult voices). Among his Leipzig pupils must be mentioned Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber, Johann Ludwig Krebs, son of the above-mentioned musician, Johann Friedrich Agricola, Gottfried August Homilius, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Christoph Transchel, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, Johann Christoph Altnickol and Johann Christian Kittel. One of his pupils, Johann Friedrich Doles, became later Thomaskantor himself and a leading composer of Protestant church music.
With great assistance from Thomas Braatz I compiled in July 2014 a list of all known pupils of J.S. Bach from all periods of his activity as a teacher, including Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen, and of course, Leipzig. The list contained the names of 146 pupils and students with whom J.S. Bach had musical contact during his Leipzig tenure with special emphasis upon the Thomaners and University of Leipzig students, but with the inclusion as well of some private music students who do not fall into either category.
Although 146 seemed quite impressive at the time, I believed that the actual number of pupils at the Thomasschule during J.S. Bach's 27-year tenure years as Thomaskantor (1723-1750) was even bigger. And indeed, I discovered that in 2012 and 2013, staff at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, headed by Dr. Peter Wollny, carried out systematic research into the lives and careers of the 325 Thomaner who had attended the boarding part of the choir school during J.S. Bach's period. One in every four J.S. Bach Thomaner worked in later life as a church musician or schoolteacher. Thanks to this detailed research work in East German archives, numerous documents have been found which throw light on the life and teaching principles of the choir school.
In order to make the list of Bach's pupils the BCW as comprehensive and as complete as possible, I contacted the researchers of Bach-Archiv Leipzig, Michael Maul, Christine Blanken and Bernd Koska and found them very willing to cooperate. They provided me with a lot of material, especially two major documents:
- Bernd Koska: Dissertation "Bachs Thomaner als Kantoren in Mitteldeutschland" (Beeskow 2018), Anhang VII.1 Die Alumnen der Thomasschule 1710-1760.
- Bernd Koska: Bachs Privatschüler in Bach-Jahrbuch 2019,
With their help the list of Bach's pupils on the BCW has increased threefold: from 146 to 451! See:
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-List.htm
The list includes all persons who might be J.S. Bach's pupils, according the following categories:
A = undoubtedly. According to the current state of knowledge, have undisputedly enjoyed J.S. Bach's private lessons.
B = probalby was a J.S. Bach's pupil (dubious).
C = most probably not. Persons who have been wrongly treated in the past as J.S. Bach's pupils.
D = unknown. Person who attended the Thomasschule during J.S. Bach's tenure, but it is not known if he actually studied with him.
I have also created/updated on the BCW bio pages of all the pupils, using material from the documents above and from any other source I had found.
In order to present a complete picture, I have added 3 lists:
Alumni of the Thomasschule in Leipzig during Bach's Tenure: https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-Richter.htm
List of Bach's Private Pupils: https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-Private.htm
List of Bach's Copyists: https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Copy-List.htm
I believe this is now the most comprehensive database of Bach's pupils on the web. If you are aware of a name missing from this list, or want to correct/add details in the biography of a Bach's pupil on on the BCW, please do not hesitate to inform me. |
|
Julian Mincham wrote (June 3, 2020):
[To Aryeh Oron] Very useful--thank you.
I have often wondered how he ever found the time to teach all his pupils alongside everything else he did. Did he ever sleep?? |
|
William Rowland wrote (June 3, 2020):
[To Julian Mincham] Bach had help to get all the heavy work loaf he had done. He filled out the basics of the compodition and had family and students do the grunt work for what he had outlined. He then checked /graded it and in wee hours of the morning copied /finished the work in his own hand. Rehearsals were underway most of the day. The only only breaks were For meal times. We must remember Bach had none of the distractions (TV, telephone etc ) we have today. Yes, Bach slept but was highly organized. I have based this theory of how Bach got all this work done based on how Rembrandt van Rijn was able to paint all his oil paintings and as a composer who has isolated himself, as many creators do, with nothing to do but write 5 Symphonies,3 Operas, other symphonic works and chamber Works In short order. If I have an assistant ;I can produce an hour long symphony within 2weeks of very intense work with another two weeks to present it with professional Orchestra. |
|
Jeffrey Solow wrote (June 3, 2020):
[To Ludwig] Your schedule leaves out his teaching, which occupied most of the morning and early afternoon. |
|
Holger Hilsenitz wrote (June 3, 2020):
[To Jeffrey Solow] Bach assigned teaching (Latin etc.) to a third person an paid him at least for a certain period. |
|
Julian Mincham wrote (June 3, 2020):
[To Jeffrey Solow] While it is attractive to think of Bach running a combined cottage industry and renaissance type artistic workshop in which the 'masters' left a lot of the donkey work to his best students, I haven't come across a lot of evidence to support it. Some composers, Lully being one, certainly did do this, writing the bass and treble parts and leaving the fill-in harmony to his pupils. If Bach did this, it is likely to have been with the keyboard works and sonatas, most of which were composed as teaching materials anyway. Bach, as an excellent teacher, would well have understood the pedagogical benefits of setting the student such an exercise 'to continue this beginning by developing the given motives to the double bar line in the dominant key, thence returning to the tonic after modulating through the relative and supertonic minor keys'. I imaging that he might well have done this, corrected it and used it as a piece of his own. However Ithink it very unlikely that he did this with the cantatas--for one thing the time scale of producing a cantata every week, teaching it to the performers (admittedly with the help of prefects) and performing it on Sunday after, almost certainly just the one rehearsal would preclude such a process. Also he wanted his religious music to be recognised in heaven and, knowing how scrupulous he was in getting every detail absolutely right, it seems unlikely that he would have entrusted any of the work to underlings.
In any case I do not see that the procedure of setting the assignment, giving it to the student, marking and correcting it, copying it out in his own hand and, as a good teacher would inevitably do, give the student feedback, would save time any time. We know from the output of his works during his first two years in Leipzig that Bach was a very fast composer and is likely to have composed a complete movement himself in less time than it would take to do all that.. Added to the canon of religious work he composed at that time plus his school and church duties, private teaching, visits elsewhere for recitals, organ inspections etc I can only think that he must have subsisted on much less sleep than most people. |
|
Jeffrey Solow wrote (June 3, 2020):
[To Julian Mincham] Yes, Bach was able to assign Latin to another teacher (officially, only in 1730), but he still taught music classes and lessons and had a myriad of other responsibilities. He had ongoing tension with his superiors at the Thomasschule because they wanted him to teach more and compose less. According to Wolff the daily schedule included academic lecture periods of 7-10am and 1-3pm (it is not clear to me if JSB taught all of these classes himself but the students were occupied with them), daily singing exercises from noon-1pm, plus individual vocal and instrumental lessons (and lessons to external private students) plus weddings and funerals in the afternoon, as well as his various other duties. Again, according to Wolff, the cantata composing schedule began on Monday with part copying, proofreading, and piecemeal rehearsals as possible before the single complete run through on Saturday.
I agree that he probably could get by on very little sleep! |
| |
|
New Bach-Related Studies: Thomas School, Leipzig After Bach |
|
William L. Hoffmann wrote (August 6, 2020):
The prosperous city of Leipzig provided Bach with two important civic institutions that shaped his musical universe: the Thomas School with its cantor position and the community with a growing musical environment for its music director. Together they enabled Bach to fulfill his calling of a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God" which, serving as the springboard to his legacy, brought both recognition and the flowering of classical music. Recent studies by two younger, impressive Bach scholars, Michael Maul1 and Jeffrey Sposato,2 have furnished a wealth of new material on the cultures and practices of the school and the community, providing a more complete portrait of the embattled leader of music in Leipzig during the first half of the 18th century and a rich thread involving the continuum of music-making from the 17th to the 19th centuries in that Saxon community. Maul, senior scholar at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig and a prolific author, has helped to greatly advance Bach research with contextual studies in various fields while actively participating in English language scholarly pursuits such as the biannual American Bach Society (https://www.americanbachsociety.org) Conference and the Bach Network dialogue meetings as well as the Bach Cantatas Website study, "Bach's Pupils" (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Pupil-List.htm). Sposato, a musicology professor at the University of Houston, "in a number of ways extends my presentation of Leipzig’s church music under Bach’s successors," says Maul (Ibid.: xvi). "Michael Maul’s Bach’s famous choir was initially motivated by his inquiry into why ‘the chronological list of the St Thomas cantors is made up almost exclusively of famous and historically significant musicians’ (p. 1), his answers being drawn from key German source texts reproduced in full in the two-volume Dokumente zur Geschichte des Leipziger Thomaskantorats, (Carus, Vol.I, ed. Maul)," says Bach scholar and reviewer Ruth Tatlow.3 The earliest well-known cantors were Seth Calvisius (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Calvisius-Sethus.htm) and Johan Hermann Schein https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schein.htm), who molded the fine choir, followed by noted composers Sebastian Knupfer (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Knupfer-Sebastian.htm), Johann Schelle (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Schelle-Johann.htm), and Johann Kuhnau (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Kuhnau-Johann.htm), whose music is now being revealed in detail through publications and recordings. Says Tatlow: <<The five chapters inevitably cover the expansive timeline unequally: Chapter I ‘From monastery to municipal music school, 1212–1593’; Chapter II ‘How the St. Thomas School became a music school, 1594–1640’; Chapter III ‘Famous throughout the whole world of music, 1640–1701’; Chapter IV ‘Odd authorities with little interest in music: the St Thomas school in crisis, 1701–1730’; Chapter V ‘School for scholars, or ‘conservatory of music’, 1730–1804’. By page 236 Bach has died, leaving the final sixty pages to cover [Cantors] Gottlob Harrer, Johann Friedrich Doles and Johann Adam Hiller before the epilogue brings the story briefly to today.>> <<The scope of the content is vast. The 300-page text is complemented by one hundred pages of reference material, consisting of twenty pages of Appendices listing Cantors, Rectors, Overseers of church and school, a Timeline of the St Thomas Choir and St Thomas Cantorate, Income and expenses of the St Thomas School, Cantors of St Thomas School 1810 to present; and eighty pages of endnotes, bibliography and two indexes. There are also 68 high quality black and white gloss plates on 48 full pages, which serve as documentary evidence. Intriguing as these bewigged images may be, I found the characters more alive in Maul’s narrative.>>
Thomas School History Themes
"Maul weaves throughout his story certain threads that explain the vicissitudes experienced by the school and choir over the centuries: the relationship to the town government; the support of the townspeople; the tensions or amity between the school’s head, the Rector, and the third-ranked Cantor; arguments about whether St. Thomas’ should be primarily a training institution for young singers or an academic school; and the role the choir played in the city’s life," says Raymond Erickson.4 Two facets of the Thomas School history uncovered by Maul, says Erickson, are the importance of Choir I for the Sunday morning music and a new set of rules approved by the governing Leipzig Town Council just before Bach's appointment in 1723, downgrading the importance of music and Bach's salary which hamstrung him. The conditions under which Bach lived and practiced his art increasingly reveal forces beyond his control — or anyone else's? — which suggest the significance of the old French adage on the definition of history as the mort-main or "dead hand" trick that the dead play on the living.
"After the original German publication in 2012, Maul’s golden touch for discovering new sources continued," Tatlow points out. "Rather than updating the text for this English version, Maul adds a ‘Note on the English edition’ [xiv]. Chief among his new finds is a 1751 letter that he discovered in 2013 by a former St Thomas choir prefect, Gottfried Benjamin Fleckeisen (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Fleckeisen-Christian-Gottlob.htm), who ‘claimed that for two whole years' (apparently sometime between 1743 and 1747) he functioned as the de facto St Thomas cantor in place of the capellmeister—doubtless Johann Sebastian Bach […] I have presented an extensive analysis of Fleckeisen’s letter and its implications in Bach Jahrbuch 2015 […] English translation by Barbara Reul online in https://www.bachnetwork.org/ub12/ub12-maul.pdf (p. xvi)."
Cantors Schelle, Kuhnau Impact Bach
Two Bach cantor predecessors, Schelle and Kuhnau, helped inform recent understanding of their contributions that impacted Bach. Schelle composed a cycle of sermon-oriented chorale cantatas, writes Marcus Rathey,5 and initiated the use of printed text booklets for the main services, says Sposato, Ibid.: 93). Kuhnau, a talented organist and scholar, wrote "A Treatise on Liturgical Text Settings (1710)," where his "objective is always to interpret the meaning and significance of the sacred words as accurately as he can, and to delight and move the spirit of the listener," says Carol K. Baron,6 which Bach particularly observed in his harmonizations of chorale texts. Another important factor shows that in 1634 "regulations for St. Thomas School were published that officially established musical talent as the sine qua non for admission, which fact no doubt inspired Heinrich Schütz, the Court Capellmeister in Dresden, to dedicate his Geistliche Chormusik (1648) to the Leipzig Town Council and their 'famous choir'," says Erickson (Ibid.: paragraph beginning "Just as enlightening . . . .").
Given the importance of Lutheran orthodoxy in the development of church music in Leipzig, as well as its Roman Catholic liturgical underpinnings from the governing Saxon state, the tenure of Bach (1723-50) reinforced these factors and helped create a century following with continuing sacred influences as the community moved from the dominance of the church and other private venues such as the court and wealthy patrons to the public concert hall, an historical trend throughout Europe. "Leipzig After Bach portrays a stolid, middle-class German city, comfortable in its relatively conservative religiosity and intellectualism, which moves gradually through the cultural issues posed by the Enlightenment into a world easily recognizable to those of us who attend both church and musical entertainments," says Valerie Walden in her review of Sposato's book.7 The topics include "how Leipzig’s 18th-century theologians zealously guarded Luther’s teachings, the connections between politics and music performance, and why Lutheranism and Catholicism remained so closely integrated, the continued reliance on Catholic traditions by Lutherans being anything but rebellious." "The illustrations, musical examples, and tables in Leipzig After Bach are excellent and well integrated with the text," says Walden (Ibid.). In particular are Table 1.2, "Feasts Celebrated in Leipzig's St. Thomas and St. Nicholas Churches" (75f), and Table 2.1 , "Latin Mass Settings" (99f) (see https://www.amazon.com/Leipzig-After-Bach-Church-Concert/dp/0190616954: "Look inside").
Leipzig Milestones, Influences
Particularly relevant is Leipzig's acceptance of the Reformation in 1739, as described in Sposato (Ibid.: 22-26). Sposato is able "to weave a rich narrative history of this period, and to explicate the traditions of the musical culture that connected Bach's legacy to Mendelssohn," says reviewer R. Larry Todd.8 "And another, equally significant contribution is to trace the symbiotic relationship between musical life in the church and concert hall, and to show how Seneca the Younger's maxim chosen by Hiller for the Gewandhaus Concerts in 1781 - 'res severa est gaudium verum' ('a serious matter is a true joy,' Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, 23) - continued to inform Leipzig musical life down through the generations and, indeed, to serve as a 'model for classical concerts as we experience them today'," he says (278). Two important Sposato findings are the interaction of Leipzig town and gown, "that influenced each other to the extent that concert programs and church services often resembled each other in form and in content," says reviewer Jason B. Grant.9 The other is that these two civic forces, instead of the impetus traditional courts and opera houses elsewhere in 18th century Germany, united with public subscription concerts growing out of the development of university student Collegia music ensembles and visiting troupes during the winter, spring, and fall trade fairs.
Two important contextual influences during Bach's time are still being explored: the decline of the German church cantata annual cycle (Wikipedia), replaced in Leipzig with Latin church music such as the Te Deum and the Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, and the influence of progressive galant-style music, as Sposato relates, which impacted on Bach. Georg Philipp Telemann had lead the way in the development of the church cantata, creating a cottage industry of 26 annual cycles, including three of extended cantatas (oratorios) from 1700 to 1750) for various municipalities and courts, copying music and publishing text booklets. In Hamburg, "Only after 1750, as he approached seventy, did Telemann start limiting his production of new church cantatas," says Steven Zohn in his new Telemann composer compendium research guide.10 Instead, about 1755, "he began composing a series of sacred vocal works for the concert hall, starting with Der Tod Jesu, he says (Ibid.: 33), the most popular poetic Passion to a text of Carl Wilhelm Ramler, replacing settings of the Brockes Passion (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Brockes-Passion-List.htm).
Composers Telemann, Stölzel Influences
Telemann as Hamburg director of music for the five principal churches and cantor of the Johanneum school (1721-67), with public concerts of occasional music of celebration and sorrow (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Telemann-Georg-Philipp.htm), also had similar responsibilities to Bach in Leipzig, setting the compositional standards with modifications from Bach. The Leipzig music director and cantor was content to compose three annual cycles of church cantatas and began presenting selective cantatas of Telemann in early Trinity Time of mid-1725 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1725.htm) when Bach took a half-year's break composing weekly service cantatas. In 1726 during composition of his third cycle, Bach substituted 18 cantatas of Johann Ludwig Bach (JLB 1-18) during Epiphany/pre-Lenten, Easter, and the first half of Trinity season (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/LCY/1726.htm). After 1729, Bach increasingly curtailed weekly cantata performances, presenting reperformances primarily during Easter season of 1731 and 1735, and possibly his chorale cantata cycle for the 1732-33 season while also selectively presenting cantatas for feast days. It appears that "Bach's musical-liturgical seasons of 1534/35 [sic] and 1735/36 were dominated by two different cantata cycles based on texts by Benjamin Schmolck and set by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel," says Sposato (Ibid.: 93f). The first of his some 12 cycles was the Gotha Capellmeister's two-part "Saitenspiel" (String-Music) cycle of 1720, and the latter being the "Namenbuch" (Namebook) double cantata cycle of 1731-32 (see "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Heinrich_Stölzel: "Cantatas"). The exact Leipzig dates of performances have not been determined, except for the two extant text booklets for the 13th to the 19th Sunday after Trinity 1735 in the String-Music cycle while no date has been determined for the Namebook cycle in Leipzig, says HanJoachim-Schulze.11 The works are more concise with Pietist-like sentiments, new texts set to well-known chorale melodies, suggesting "that a significant change in repertoire was already underway in Bach's second decade as Thomaskantor, Sposato says (Ibid.: 94). Thus, "part of that change included an increase in the performance of concerted mass settings," says Sposato (Ibid.), a genre also found extensively with Stölzel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Heinrich_Stölzel: "Kyrie–Gloria masses"), in place of musical sermon cantatas. As Schulze had written earlier: "Which long-term changes took place in Bach’s performance repertoire, we are now only beginning to understand. Whether Bach himself composed a complete 4th or even 5th yearly cantata cycle must therefore come into question even more now. By performing works by other composers, Bach could at least be temporarily relieved from some of his duties as composer and performer of church music so that he could pursue other musical interests and attempt to obtain invitations for private trips, organ examinations or performances outside of Leipzig. It is possible that he changed his mind regarding the nature of his duties in Leipzig and redefined them entirely so that his church music duties were no longer among his primary objectives.
Bach Poetic Passions
"Meanwhile, Bach after 1729 had turned to composing extended works for the Christological cycle of feast days and on Good Friday 1734 presented a poetic Passion oratorio of Stölzel, "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld" (A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth, Wikipedia, YouTube). Tatjana Schabalina's 2007 discovery of the text book showed that a poetic Passion oratorio had been performed in Leipzig instead of just gospel narrative oratorio Passions.12 This gives credence to the Leipzig tradition of progressive contemplative Passion performances, beginning in 1717 at the New Church with Telemann's Brockes Passion, followed by possible performances in the 1720s and 1739, as well as Telemann's Seliges Erwagen in the late 1720s, shows Andreas Glöckner.13 In the 1740s, in addition to presenting his own narrative Passions, Bach produced two pasticcio Passions: a 1743-48 hybrid after C.H. Graun's Passion cantata, "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld," entitled "Wer ist der, so von Edom kömmt" (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1088.htm, with additional music of Telemann, Kuhnau, J. C. Altnikol, and Bach (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV1088-Gen.htm), and the 1747-48 pasticcio of the Keiser-Bruhns St. Mark Passion with seven arias from Handel's Brockes Passion, HWV 48 (Wikipedia: "Leipzig 1747–1748 (BNB I/K/2", Carus-Verlag. In conjunction with these two pasticcio Passions, Bach is thought to have presented performances of the original C. H. Graun Passion cantata, after 1730, and the Handel Brockes Passion in 1746, finds Hans-Joachim Schulze. The documents on the Thomaskantorat after 1750 show that there were no significant structural changes there until the turn of the century. In this respect, they are mainly relevant for Bach's term in office (1723-1750).
Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, Collegia musica Influences
The Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, begun as a Catholic musical form of in lieu of a complete Mass Ordinary, became in Lutheran Germany in the second half of the 17th century the Kurzmessen (short masses) which flourished in the first half of the 18th century "as a Catholic/Lutheran crossover," says Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_brevis). In Bach's time as a Missa brevis, it was composed by Buxtehude, Theil, Kuhnau, and Zachow and later by Telemann and Stölzel as well as the Dresden Court composers Zalenka, Caldara and Harrer, Bach's successor in Leipzig. While Bach was completing his Mass in B-Minor in 1749, the Dresden Court Prime Minister, Count Heinrich von Brühl, championed his Kapellmeister Harrer for the Leipzig Cantor's post and he auditioned on 8 June at the Three Swans Inn to become the frontrunner. Parallel with the flourishing of the Lutheran Mass was the growth of the two Leipzig Collegia musica ensembles, established by university students Telemann in 1701 and Johann Friedrich Fasch in 1708, with weekly performances (Ordinaire Concerte) at Zimmermann's and Richter's coffeehouses. Bach in 1723 "worked quickly to establish a strong relationship with [Georg Balthazar] Schott and his ensemble," and succeeded him in 1729 when he moved to Gotha, directing the "Bachische" Collegium "until as late as 1746," says Sposato (Ibid.: 84f). In 1743 a group of Leipzig city leaders established the Großen Concert new concert society, modeled after the Collegia musica, and Bach student Doles (1715-97) became its first music director. Because of Leipzig's church musical dominance, the performances were called Concerts Spirituels and the Three Swans Inn was the permanent home since its second season. Progressive Italianate music came to dominate Leipzig public musical life, including annual Lenten poetic Passions of Johann Adolf Hasse and Johann Adolf Scheibe on Monday of Holy Week, says Sposato (Ibid.: 88f), while even Brockes Passions were performed in churches on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Cantor Harrer's new era of Leipzig church music (until 1755) brought an infusion of Latin church music in "an almost weekly occurrence for which he assembled a cycle of masses equivalent to the Bach cantata cycles," says Sposato (Ibid.: 110). This mass repertoire includes the Palestrina 'Missa sine nomine" (which Bach had performed) and others of Palestrina, as well as five Telemann chorale masses and the Dresden music of Harrer, Fux, Bononcini and Ristori. Besides Latin masses and annual Passions, the annual town council installation cantatas were continued but supplemented with Psalm settings and concerted Te Deum settings, he says (Ibid.: 113). "Doles tenure remains the longest in the history of the cantorate, and, more important, spanned a period of significant political and liturgical change," he says (Ibid.: 115). Bachian Postscript
Had Bach survived his eye surgery, he may have continued providing annual presentations of the Passions at Good Friday vespers and Town Council installation cantatas in late August. He could have taken advantaged of the Großen Concert public concerts established in 1743, successor to his Leipzig Collegium musicum and forerunner of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, established in 1781 and lead by Hiller, who was Doles' successor in 1791. Bach also could have participated in performances of his Christological Cycle of Mass movements, feast day oratorios, and chorale cantatas, assisted by prefects at the Thomas School, and the realization of performances in various media of his late polyphonic instrumental collections, possibly assisted by musically-talented sons Emanuel, Friedemann, Johannn Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 Michael Maul, Bach's Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1212-1804, Eng. trans. Richard Howe (Woodbridge GB: Boydell Press, 2018), Amazon.com, https://boydellandbrewer.com/bach-s-famous-choir.html; updated translation of "Dero berühmbter Chor": die LThomasschule und ihre Kantoren (1212 - 1804) (Leipzig: Lehmstedt Verlag, 2012); see also Maul, Dokumente zur Geschichte des Thomaskantorats, Vol. 1, Von der Reformation bis zum Amtsantritt Johann Sebastian Bachs (Leinfelden-Echterdingen: Carus, 2016), Carus-Verlag; Volume II by Hans-Joachim Schulze, see below. 2 Jeffrey S. Sposato, Leipzig After Bach: Church and Concert Life in a German City (1750-1847) (Oxford University Press, 2018), Amazon.com: "Look inside").
3 Ruth Tatlow, Andreas Werckmeister’s Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse AND Bach’s Famous Choir: the Saint Thomas School in Leipzig 1212–1804, in Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning, Swedish Journal of Music Research (2019), http://musikforskning.se/stm-sjm/node/257. 4 Raymond Erickson, Book Review: "Bach’s Famous Choir," in Early Music America (May 20, 2019), https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/book-review-bachs-famous-choir/.
5 See Marcus Rathey, "The Chorale Cantata in Leipzig: The Collaboration between Schelle and Carpzov in 1689-1690 and Bach's Chorale Cantata Cycle," in BACH, Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (Berea OH, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2012: 46-92), Jstor). 6 Carol K. Baron, Introduction to Kuhnau, "A Treatise on Liturgical Text Settings (1710)," in Bach's Changing World: Voices in the Community, ed. Carol K. Baron (University of Rochester (NY) Press, 2006: 221), Google Books. 7 Valerie Walden review, "How Leipzig Fared Post-Bach," in Early Music America (August 2018), https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/how-leipzig-fared-post-bach/.
8 R. Larry Todd review, "Jeffrey S. Sposato. Leipzig after Bach," in BACH, Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (Berea OH, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2019: 308-313), UNM University Libraries. 9 Jason B. Grant, "A Review of Jeffrey S. Sposato’s Leipzig After Bach," in BACH Notes, newsletter of the American Bach Society, No. 29, Fall 2018: 5), American Bach Society: Bach Notes 29.
10 Steven Zohn, The Telemann Compendium, Boydell Composer Compendium Series (Woodridge GB, Boydell Press, 2020), 13), Amazon.com.
11 Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Ein weiterer Kantatenjahrgang Gottfried Heinrich Stölzels in Bachs Aufführungsrepertoire? (Is there another cantata cycle by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel that belonged to Bach’s performance repertoire?), Eng. trans. Thomas Braatz, in Bach Jahrbuch 95 (2009: 95-116), http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Stolzel-Bach-Glockner-Eng.pdf.
12 Tatjana Schabalina, "Texte zur Music" in Sankt Petersburg. Neue Quellen zur Leipziger Musikgeschichte sowie zur Kompositions- und Aufführungstätigkeit Johann Sebastian Bachs," in Bach Jahrbuch 94 (2008), https://journals.qucosa.de/bjb/article/view/2227/2153: "Discussions in the Week of March 31, 2013"). 13 See Andreas Glöckner, "Johann Sebastian Bachs Aufführungen zeitgenössischer Passionsmusiken," in Bach Jahrbuch 63 (1977: 75-119), English summary, "Bach and the Passion music of his contemporaries," in Musical Times 116 (1975: 613-16); also "Neuerkenntnisse zu Johann Sebastian Bachs Aufführungskalender zwischen 1729 und 1735," in Bach Jahrbuch 67 (1981: 43-75).
14 Hans-Joachim Schulze, Dokumente zur Geschichte des Thomaskantorats, Vol. II, Vom Amtsantritt Johann Sebastian Bachs bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (Edition Bach- Archiv Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018), Google Translate, |
| |
|
|
